Infestations don’t make much dent in real estate values…

With biblical catastrophes like thousands of birds falling dead from the sky, or schools of fish simultaneously turning belly up, Americans are reminded they share their country with several delicate ecosystems and neighbors of myriad species.

Among those myriad species are creatures even less pleasant than dead birds. For instance, bed bugs have been in the news of late, but so have killer bees, sharks, and even rats. Interestingly, the correlation between America’s most infested cities and their real estate prices is not always what you’d expect. Indeed, the city with the worst infestations of two aforementioned and decidedly unpleasant critters is also one of the country’s most expensive to live in.

The Africanized honey bee with a tendency to attack in swarms first made paranoid headlines in Hidalgo, Texas in the early 1990’s. Instead of ignoring the paranoia, Hidalgo capitalized on it, and now proudly advertises itself as “The Killer Bee Capital of the World.”

Yahoo Real Estate stats show 20 homes on the market in Hidalgo now at a median of $93,936. While this is not a whole lot of money compared to Bay Area standards, it’s up substantially from the 90’s, when the bee buzz started. Homes sold at a median of a little more than $62K. Killer bees then haven’t killed the real estate market.

2. Bugs and Sharks

By land or by sea, the swampy tropicalia of Florida offers home to the worst infestations of bugs (not including bed bugs; that’s another city. More on that later.) and most frequent shark attacks.

Cockroaches can lead to allergic reactions in humans, while termites alone cause $5 billion in property damage every year.

In a recent national survey among homeowners conducted by Infogroup, Florida received the unwelcome distinction of being the state with the worst bug problems. Cockroaches, ants, termites- they’re all very comfortable residents of the Sunshine State.

Now while Florida as a whole has too much variety by county in home prices to make a sweeping statement about the median price, we all know it has suffered in the recent real estate debacle. Yet the tanking prices are due more to foreclosure and similar market crash side-effects, not bugs. In fact, the bugs have always been in Florida, even when these homes that are being foreclosed on were ostensibly worth four times what they now sell for.

Same goes for sharks. Shark attacks on humans are infrequent, but much less so at New Smyrna Beach, Fla. Here, according to the International Shark Attack File, is our shark attack capital, with 219 documented attacks since 1882. Trulia puts the current median at $290K. Again, this seems like chump change to San Francisco residents, but consider that Trulia also shows several Florida counties posting much lower medians, and this includes coastal areas like New Smyrna.

And now we get to the biggest mismatch in pest vs. price comparisons. For New York, New York is home to some of the highest numbers of both. Yahoo Travel reports:

Insect parasites that like to feed on human blood hiding in your home? Sounds like a bad sci-fi movie, but bedbugs are all too real. And they like hanging out in the Big Apple. According to a recent report from Terminix, New York is the most bedbug-infested city in the country.

Meanwhile, rats, carriers of disease and general hideousness, are also most oft found in the city of New York. Fairly, we might argue a rat census would be hard to accomplish, but the next best thing has been accomplished instead: a “Rodent Risk Assessment report….. conducted by pest management experts,” which used criteria such as “population density and climate.” Results? Estimates for the number of rats in New York vary from “the optimistic 256,000 range to the more troubling figure of almost 100 million.”

Also very high: real estate values in New York, New York. The current median list is $1,853,395. So no, blood suckers in the beds and rats in the streets do not, repeat, do not “bug” prices much.

San Francisco Pests?

What compares here in San Francisco? Earthquakes aren’t really insects, but could cause a lot more damage than a termite in a lot less time. Or is it the ticket-enforcement officials in their beetle-like vehicles?